It’s time for Beacon Hill to get moving — and stop putting the interests of liquor stores ahead of consumers.

A US Supreme Court decision in 2005 struck down state laws that prohibit out-of-state wineries from shipping directly to consumers; Massachusetts had such a law. But the Legislature, under pressure from alcohol wholesalers and retailers, has dragged its feet about setting up licensing rules for direct shipments. And in the absence of such rules, few wineries or shipping companies will risk sending wine into the Commonwealth.

Representative Ted Speliotis, who co-chairs the Legislature’s Committee on Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure, says he hopes the two sides of the issue will reach a compromise. Yet the opposing sides are so far apart that a compromise is hard to envision; while wine retailers want the ability to sell their products online, they don’t want the competition that direct shipping by wineries might provide.

Dear Representative Ted Speliotis,

Don't look to compromise with liquor stores and distributors.

Allow Direct Shipment of Wine to Massachusetts as the US Supreme Court decision allows.

There aren't two sides to this story. Only one.

Allow direct shipment of wine to Massachusetts, and by the way, take a look at your email some time and reply. I've written to you numerous times about this.

Monday, December 24, 2012

In March, Arnold Sheinis, 84, a retired psychiatrist who has dedicated the last 25 years to painting, asked the owners of Gallery 55 in Natick to come to his house to see his work. They found a modest split-level Cape where watercolors, drawings, photographs, and sketches covered walls, hallways, desks, and tables from the basement to the bedrooms on the second floor. It was in one of those rooms that Anet James and John Mottern, co-owners of the gallery, found a colorful drawing of anthropomorphized woodland creatures, evocative of “Frog and Toad” or pre-Disney Winnie-the-Pooh.

“Under a pile of laundry that was on a bed there was a beautiful illustration of the cover of a children’s book that was just kind of peeking back at us,” Mottern recalled recently. “We moved the laundry, and we looked at it, and we asked Arnold, and he said ‘Oh, that’s Betty’s book.’”

Sheinis introduced the gallery owners to his wife, Betty Abbott Sheinis, a painter, an illustrator, and a dreamer, who had started working on the book decades ago. But she was suffering from dementia and did not recognize her own work. Nor could she say where she kept it.

Image from Rhoda's Ocean courtesy Gallery 55 via Boston Globe video

It's hard for me to image why the Boston Globe does not link out the the main subject of hte story, Betty's book, to make it easier for readers to find and buy it.

[Eliot Tatelman, president and CEO of Jordan’s Furniture] lured John Pupek, the Jordan Marsh baker, out of retirement to recreate the department store’s classic blueberry muffins and sells them for $10 a box for six. The Enchanted Village is free.
“After I bought the village, I knew I wanted those famous blueberry muffins, so I researched it, found the retired baker and called him to ask if there’s any way to bring the muffin back,” Tatelman said. “But I told him it had to be the exact recipe, made the same way, and challenged him to do it.”

'The Starving Artist' special lets you get a burger, fries, and some type of soft drink or an Atwater's beer for $9. It's a late afternoon special going from 2:30 PM until 4-ish. Check on the specials when you get there.

Solved the problem of getting the mouse cursor all the way across the screen. We sped up the mouse.

In System Preferences you can set the Tracking Speed. That's the speed at which the mouse travels across the screen. I set it to go faster. Now it takes less mouse movement to make the mouse move across the screen.

Seinfeld believes funniness is genetic. When his father, Kalman, was stationed in the Pacific during World War II, he’d transcribe jokes he heard and store them in a box for safekeeping. “In the army, that’s kind of how you got through it,” Seinfeld says. “People would tell jokes by the score, because what else are you going to do to maintain sanity? The recognizing of jokes as precious material: that’s where it starts. If you’ve got the gene, a joke is an amazing thing. It’s something you save in a box in a war.”

That's the same thing my dad did.

I've got the box.

Image: My dad's box of jokes on index cards

Image: Jokes on index cards

Image: My wife likes to buy anything marked "down."

"My wife likes to buy anything marked down. Today she came home from the store with two dresses and an escalator."

My father also had this routine he'd always perform. Over and over and over again.

Image: Routine

My mom and I heard his routine hundreds of times, but we'd always laugh.

I guess that's were I get my love of comedy.

Thinking back, I used to love to listen to my dad's comedy records, and then my own Steve Martin album.

I took a Stand Up Comedy Workshop at the Boston Center for Adult Education and went on stage a few times. It was fun.

When I was producing the Karlson and McKenzie radio show in Boston, I'd write jokes for them, and that led me to becoming a Fax joke writer for Jay Leno. I'd fax in 10 jokes a day, and if any got used, I'd get paid.

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About Me

Steve is a Social Media Traveler. Companies, brands, and destinations send my wife and I on trips in hopes that we will publicly share our experiences via social media. Examples include opening festivities for the Hermitage Club and traveling with GMC to the Super Bowl. (Go Pats!) We are available for more branded experience trips.